Tomcat

by David E. Meadows

  “I detached one of the empty tankers to go with him, but the tanker won’t catch up for another few minutes,” Steve Cloth answered.

  “Have the S-3 do a flyby beneath the EP-3E and give a damage assessment.”

  The Petty Officer pushed his headset tight against his ears.

  “Captain,” the petty officer interrupted, touching Dick Holman on the sleeve. “The P3 Charlie has sonobuoy contact and has broken off search. He is enroute to the contact area.”

  “I’ll tell the admirals,” Steve Cloth said, turning toward the flag officers.

  The three flag officers seemed very animated with inaudible whispers being accompanied by emphatic body language.

  Dick grabbed Steve’s arm. “No, Commander. Let them be while they decide certain issues. Let’s not disturb them until we have contact. We have our orders.”

  “We do?”

  “Steve, I am Sixty-seven, right?”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “No, huts. I’ll tell you when to tell them.”

  Dick leaned over the ATE console. “Do we have them on radar?”

  “No, sir. They are too far out. The E-2C does,” the ATE operator replied, referring to the two-engine prop radar aircraft that circled incessantly above the carrier battle group, continuously mapping the air picture for hundreds of miles around.

  “Can we pipe the E-2C’s radar picture to this console?”

  “Yes. sir. but I will have to shift my flights to the backup consoles.”

  “Go ahead and do it.”

  “It will take a few minutes. Captain.” the petty officer offered reluctantly. “Control may be clouded as the new ATE and 1 coordinate the shift. Captain.”

  Shifting control of a flight of aircraft from the ATE controlling them to a new ATE meant minutes of gaining familiarity by the new controller. Minutes that could be the difference between giving the right commands and the wrong ones.

  Dick reached up and pinched his nose. Both the ATE and Steve Cloth waited for him to confirm his orders. He reached out and touched the ATE on the shoulder. “You know something, son, you’re right. Leave it the way it is.

  Who are you controlling?”

  “Sir, Ranger Two Nine has shifted to Sigonella control on channel twenty. Four FA-18 Hornets, Two S-3 Vikings, and one P-3C Orion remain under my control.”

  “I don’t care!” shouted the general behind them. “We are not going to expand this crisis!” He slammed his hand down on the plotting table, unaware tops of plotting tables are made of Plexiglas.

  Both Dick Holman and Steve Cloth grimaced as they waited for the sound of Plexiglas cracking and were surprised when the table remained lighted and operable. Pete Devlin leaned forward, put his hand on the table, and said something to the general, who nodded in acknowledgment.

  The towel, gripped tightly in the general’s right hand, bounced around as he made his points. Dick noted the general’s executive aide, Colonel Brad Storey, seemed to shift from one side of the general to the other, the smile never leaving his bright face. Here, go fetch, Fido.

  The two men turned back to the ATE and waited for the word that the Algerian submarine had been located.

  Dick’s eyes locked with Admiral Cameron’s for a moment.

  The admiral nodded as if the two understood what he wanted. Dick raised his hand slowly, and with a salute that could have passed for wiping his forehead, acknowledged the unspoken command of the admiral. What he was about to do might cost him his job, but both of them knew what one submarine could do if it was allowed loose in the middle of a bunch of surface ships. It was always easier to get forgiveness than permission.

  “sigonella control, this is ranger Two niner. We are two hundred miles out and request immediate landing clearance. I am declaring an in-flight emergency.”

  “Roger, Two Niner. We have already been forewarned of your approach. What is your situation?”

  “We have three with minor wounds on board and … one casualty. Request medical service meet us on touchdown.”

  “Two Niner,” the Italian operator at Sigonella interrupted, “ambulances with medical service are already standing by. We have fire engines at the approach end of the runway. They will chase you down the runway as you land. What is the fuel status and your undercarriage?”

  “Sigonella, we are low on fuel. Fuel crossover valve is inop, limiting remaining fuel to the number-five bladder.

  I would like to make a pass over your position before landing for a wheels-down check. Lights show no problem at this time with the undercarriage. Number-one engine is destroyed, and wing integrity seems okay at the moment. We are at two thousand feet altitude. I am restricted to less than ten thousand feet because of battle damage to the right rear side of the fuselage. I have a gaping hole about three feet across.” “Roger,” the Sigonella operator said. Behind the Italian supervisor monitoring the conversation, an American Navy captain walked through the door, followed by several other American Navy officers. The operator recognized the thin, mustached man as the new commanding officer of the American Sigonella Naval Base. He nodded but did not interrupt the operator in his duties.

  “Ranger Two Niner, you are cleared for a direct approach.

  I have you on radar. Come to course zero six two and maintain altitude two zero. All aircraft have been vectored away.” He paused and then added, “Good luck.”

  Two clicks on the microphone acknowledged his transmission.

  “Jasbo, go ahead and have everyone strap in with the exception of the fire watches and those administering first aid. Everyone is to keep their parachutes on. Chief Henckel’s?”

  “Yes, sir. Temperature on number two still in the red.

  Numbers three and four running within specs. We have fuel for two more hours without regaining fuel transfer capability, Commander.” Chief Henckels reached up, pulled out a group of circuit breakers, and reset them. “Fuel transfer pump remains inop.”

  “Ranger Two Nine, Shell Leader, coming up, on your starboard side, shipmate. Hey, you got some nice scars on that old banger you’re flying.”

  Jasbo and Chief Henckels looked out of the starboard window of the cockpit. The pilot of the S-3 tanker, to their right and slightly behind them, waved.

  “Commander, we got company. Looks as if our guide has arrived.”

  “The S-3?”

  “Yes, sir. He is right side, aft position.”

  Stillwell pushed the Transmit button of his microphone.

  “Shell Leader, Ranger Two Niner. Welcome aboard. We need an undercarriage check and would appreciate it if you could do a three sixty around the entire aircraft.”

  “Can do, Ranger Two Niner. We will go beneath — right to left — stop on your left side and then go over you. I got a good look at your tail assembly, and with the exception of some minor shrapnel holes — small, about fist size — I would say you’re okay there. Those holes are along the sides and not near the flaps.”

  “Roger, Shell Leader. I’ll be looking for you on the port side.”

  “Jasbo, tell the crew about Shell Leader. Every little bit of encouragement helps,” Commander Stillwell said. The crew would know the S-3 could offer little assistance if they had to ditch the aircraft or bail out, but the presence of another aircraft provided an intrinsic comfort factor while they fought the buffeting aircraft to reach safety.

  “Hey, Ranger Two Niner. It’s your buddy here on the port side. Man oh man, you know those antennas you guys like to keep hidden under that canoe running along the center of your aircraft? Well, they ain’t hidden anymore; but you don’t have to worry, because those antennas ain’t there, either. Looks to us as if you took a hit — by what, we don’t know — but our consolidated professional opinion is that the canoe absorbed the hit and probably saved your butts.”

  “Did you hear that?” Jasbo asked Chief Henckels.

  “Yeah, ma’am,” he replied, turning sideways in his chair, ripping open a heavy plastic tarp that covered a bank of hid
den circuit breakers. “There are no red lights on, Lieutenant. I don’t have a thing showing there is anything wrong with the canoe or its antennas.” He bowed his head under his raised arm and looked back at her. “Not a thing.”

  “Thanks, Shell Leader. Our warning lights failed to show the damage. How do our wheel wells look?”

  “Your left wheel well has two shrapnel holes in it that we can see. I see no damage around the nose wheel, and the starboard wing wheel well we surveyed when we approached, and it looked all right.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you want to try to lower them, we can take position aft and see if they lock.”

  “I am running low on fuel. We have less than two hours of fuel available, and lowering the wheels may affect the flight characteristics of the aircraft. As you can see, we have sustained quite a lot of damage. Several of the avionics packages have already shifted to backup and alternate modes. I am in contact with Sigonella control on channel twenty, and our intentions are to lower the wheels when we reach long final, do a flyby of the tower so they can verify wheels down and locked. Then, we’ll do a short pattern and land where beer and women—”

  “Don’t forget the dancing men,” Jasbo added.

  “—will be waiting with open arms.”

  The S-3 moved up alongside the cockpit of the EP-3.

  The navigator riding in the right-hand seat of the two-jet engined tanker waved at Commander Stillwell, who threw his hand up in response.

  “Ranger Two Niner, we will be with you all the way.

  According to our calculations, Sigonella is about two hours out with this headwind. You are going to be low on fuel before you hit the coastline. Do you have an alternate airfield in mind, if you have to divert? One closer?”

  “Wait one, Shell Leader.”

  “Jasbo, ask the navigator for the name of that other airfield.

  The one she said was about five miles closer.” “Commander, she said that airfield was abandoned. It’s an old Italian air base that was closed in the early 1990s.”

  “If it has a runway, we may have no choice, Jasbo. Ask her for the name, and tell the navigator to be prepared to divert there, if need be.”

  Two minutes later, she had the name of the old, abandoned airfield and gave it to Commander Stillwell, who passed it on to both the chase plane and Sigonella Airfield.

  At Sigonella, the new American captain turned to two members of his staff and ordered them to contact the Can tan ia Airport Fire Department and ask them to send a couple of fire trucks to the abandoned airfield. He then picked up the telephone, contacted the huge hospital complex on Naval Base Two, and asked the commanding officer of it to divert a standby medical team to the old Castelliano Air Base. By the time Ranger Two Nine passed the coastline of Sicily, Sigonella, Cantania, the old, abandoned strip at Castelliano would have fire engines and medical personnel standing by. The options for the EP-3 crew had just expanded.

  * * *

  The navigator estimated another thirty minutes before they could safely turn to a northwesterly course, away from the direction of the American and the combined French and British fleets. Just mentioning the presence of the formidable naval forces the Al Nasser would encounter if he held the current course made Ibn Al Jamal lean forward, as if urging the submarine to reach deeper water.

  The first ping caused him and everyone in the control room to jump. His head snapped right, looking at the sonar operator, who jerked his headset off. It took four long steps for him to cross the control room, shouting for the operator to put the headset back on.

  The pings continued. The water was too shallow for a destroyer or another submarine, either of which sonar would have picked up long before they had detected him.

  No, the source was either a hovering helicopter with a dipping sonar or an active sonobuoy. The helicopter would have to operate from a nearby platform, and sonar had reflected no surface ships within seventy-five nautical miles. That did not mean that it couldn’t be a helicopter, just that the flight radius of the helicopter would be stretching its time on station. In the few seconds it took for the sonar operator to put his headset back on and adjust the pads over his ears, Ibn Al Jamal had decided the pings on the skin of the submarine were from an active sonobuoy. The operator soon confirmed his thoughts.

  An active sonobuoy meant American antisubmarine warfare aircraft in the area. The aircraft would have to align itself for an attack run. He had — if Allah was with him — a minute before an attack could be launched.

  “How much water beneath the hull?” he asked the officer of the deck.

  “Another fifty, maybe sixty feet.”

  “Hit the fathometer and get an accurate reading!”

  The OOD hit the button. A faint ping radiated from the Al Nasser, bouncing off the smooth bottom of the shallow coastal shelf before returning to the submarine. The OOD stared at the fathometer until the gauge read the depth.

  “Sixty-seven feet, My Captain.”

  “Take her down to one hundred feet,” Ibn Al Jamal ordered, doubling the current depth of fifty feet.

  The shout of the sonar operator, detecting an entry splash, announced the appearance of the American Mark-50 torpedo joining them in their limited sea. He waved his hand slowly in a downward motion, calming the sonar operator, who visibly took two deep breaths before turning back to his console. The operator’s voice began a series of steady reports feeding information to the skipper as the torpedo propeller churned the water. The Mark-50, with its 100 kilos of high explosives, began a circular search pattern as it looked for an underwater target to attack. The sonar operator estimated the torpedo to be one kilometer to the west closing to a half kilometer before it began to circle back to the west. Every time the torpedo turned east, the sweat factor in the small control room rose as everyone waited — prayed — for it to continue its circle.

  Ibn Al Jamal’s gut reaction was to speed up to maximum flank in an attempt to reach the open sea before the torpedo locked on them. However, he knew better. At eight knots, the noise of the AI Nasser was low and, so far, the torpedo had failed to detect them.

  Splashes ahead of the Al Nasser announced the arrival of two more American Mark-50 torpedoes to the party beneath the sea. They had landed off the coastal shelf about two to three kilometers ahead of them. One immediately commenced a deep-sea search, soon disappearing beneath the shelf, its telltale noise signature shielded from the passive sonar of the Al Nasser. The second started a shallow water circular search, each circuit expanding its area until the torpedo crossed the shelf, making its circuit half over the coastal shelf and half over the deep water. This torpedo was directly ahead. Ibn Al Jamal had little choice. If he continued on this course, the torpedo ahead of him would detect them in a matter of seconds. To his west was the initial torpedo continuing an expanding racetrack search for the submarine. East was the only open area.

  The very direction he wanted to avoid. The very direction that carried him closer to the Western forces operating off the coast of his country and farther from the sanctuary of Malaga. Spain.

  He eased the Al Nasser into a slow, easterly turn, avoiding cavitating the water behind him. Cavitation churned the water and attracted torpedoes like blood attracted sharks.

  The AI Nasser was twenty degrees farther east on its course when the sonar operator — in a breaking voice— tried calmly to announce that the torpedo ahead of them had broken off its search. It was locked on the Al Nasser and headed their way. The pings of the torpedo replaced the pings of the active sonobuoy that had disappeared moments before the first torpedo entered the water.

  Ibn Al Jamal shouted, ordering the Al Nasser into a hard left turn and increasing the speed to fourteen knots, cavitating the water behind (he old surplus Soviet submarine.

  The torpedo changed direction slightly, drawn to the higher decibels of the churning water and away from the submarine propellers. He regretted the shout. If the captain loses his cool, then the crew soon follows. He ke
pt the submarine in a hard left turn until the bow approached slightly off center to the approaching torpedo. He steadied the submarine on a bow approach. Decoys rocketed from the rear of the Al Nasser. The noisemakers hit the water, clanging away, distracting the passive sonar of the torpedo.

  Ibn Al Jamal simultaneously ordered “All stop,” stopping the rotation of the propellers and shaft. The submarine continued moving forward on the remaining momentum as the giant propellers slowed.

  The sonar operator turned and reported ten seconds to impact. He raised the headset away fro, a his head but held it near his ears. Everyone watched the clock … eight, seven, six … and then the torpedo was past. The sonar operator let the earpieces slap back onto his ears. The torpedo was traveling. the port side of the submarine, only a few feet away. Those in the control room heard the spinning propellers through the hull of the submarine as the Mark-50 traveled the length of Al Nasser. They held their breaths for the next few seconds, praying silently that the torpedo would fail to detect the faint rotation of the propellers as it passed. The emotional response of the torpedo operator praising Allah, his mother, his father, and the captain told everyone the torpedo danger was past and locked on the decoys. Ibn Al Jamal brought the speed back up to eight knots.

  An explosion rocked the submarine slightly. Ibn Al Jamal looked to the sonar operator, who reported the explosion was of the torpedo that had disappeared beneath the coastal shelf. “Must have hit something … ” he offered, his voice trailing off.

  They were not out of danger yet. Two torpedoes remained active in the water. One, Ibn Al Jamal believed, was too far to the west to be an immediate threat, but he knew to never discount anything in the water. The one they avoided — a second explosion rocked the Al Nasser— just hit a decoy. He grinned. Only one threat remained in the water, but by now, the attacking ASW aircraft had had sufficient time to complete a circuit and align for another attack. Ibn Al Jamal suspected a minimum of two American aircraft attacking him. Most ASW aircraft possessed the capability for at least two Mark-50 torpedoes; therefore, three dropped that close together told him he had at least two above him. He turned the Al Nasser to port, back into the underwater channel leading to deep-sea water. One-quarter kilometer to go—250 meters.